Friday, December 13, 2013

Splash pages, you gotta love 'em. A blank canvas where the artist can hit you with a large dose of illustrated 'wow'. This week, it's common knowledge that the George Perez/Marv Wolfman era of The New Teen Titans inspired legions of comic fans and professionals, but did you know one of the biggest fanboys is divisive comic artist Rob Liefeld?

As just one example of his titanic worship, check out how George handles double-page spreads of invading enemy strongholds...

And compare it to Rob's homage to his heroes, in X-Force #1...

I dug both these books BIG time when they were released. When X-Force came out I didn't care how Rob drew feet or anatomy, I just dug what was a B-grade action film in print. The 'B' is no disrespect to Rob or writer Fabian Nicieza either. Not every comic needs to reach for an arty award. Sometimes you just want a book where sh!t blows up, and that's X-Force.

The Perez gate fold is far far better then the Liefeld copy!!!Liefeld's would be better if he could draw hands and feet.if you look at his, half the characters have ether got hands or feet out of frame or conveniently covered by something and the ones you can see are poor. Cable is that massive and has tiny feet and ankles he would just fall over all the time.

Thanks for the comments guys! Perez's Titans still kicks all kinds of awesome huh? I remember Two things striking me when I saw this originally, one was Cyborg epicly leading the charge and the other was Robin. George doesn't get enough credit for being the artist who made Grayson look like a toned acrobatic, not a superman or skinnyman, and a teen too. That's a hard balance to strike.

Have to agree - the Liefeld one has NOTHING on Perez; there is simply no comparison.Agree with an above poster - Liefeld cannot draw feet or hands [unless there claws] as his recent Hawk and Dove series clarified all too well.Perez on the other hand exudes masterpiece in all he does, hes basically the last of the old-time artists now, with so many having passed on, and he still has the ability to give us a shock of nostalgia with his work.

Thanks Karl - completely agree on George's timelessness. My favourite comics to retreat into to relax are his Avengers issues with Kurt Busiek. Sometimes as brilliant as Kurt is with words, I still end up just drooling over the pictures!

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